‘Features’ Category

In celebration of Spring Cleanup Season the Observer invited readers to submit “interesting-funny-infuriating stories about junk, dumping junk or having junk picked up…” Today is garbage day and I couldn’t help but remember this incident of a few years ago: Driving home recently, I noticed a mattress and box-spring set placed beside the road presumably for the trash men to take it away. It reminded me of a similar circumstance a friend of mine had years ago. She had called and asked if we could help her. She had been renting out a spare room for several years and the lady moved out leaving an old mattress and box-spring set behind. It was definitely past its prime and too much for one person to carry. We were happy to help bring it out for pick up. It was one of the most used mattresses I had ever seen. The middle was totally mashed down and only about three inches thick. It spread close to the perimeter, which still maintained some semblance of the original nine-inch depth. The original color of the cover was no longer discernible. It was now superimposed stain upon stain. While I didn’t say anything, I thought …

Winslow Artist Tim West died on Monday, April 4. Below is Susan McCarthy’s profile feature of the man, from the Observer’s March 8, 2010 edition. “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” So goes a quote from George Bernard Shaw, a playwright and essayist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. The quote seems fitting for Tim West, an artist who makes his home off Sunset Road in Winslow in a hauntingly primitive shed against a background of Ozark beauty. West is proof that nothing in life is as it seems and that you can’t make assumptions about people or things by just looking at them. West is well-known in Win- slow; a daily fixture at Mikey’s on 71 South. He’s known for his homemade bicycles that are crafted from parts of old bicycles. He’s often seen riding around town with “garbage” he’s collected for his art. He has no car and bicycles 50 miles round-trip to Fayetteville once a month. We drove out to West’s home last Wednesday to meet with him and photographer Diana Hausam, who first met West in 2006. Hausam has spent the past three and a half years photographing …

During the 1904 fall session of the Washington County Court, a petition requesting incorporation was submitted by the town of Winslow. The request was granted in the spring session of 1905. The little city of Winslow has seen many changes in the past 100 plus years.

GREENLAND – At 25 years old, Pastor Jeff Jones may seem to some like just a boy, but he’s a man of God. In fact, as the Free Will Baptist Church’s newest pastor, he’s the man of God. Jones began serving as the church’s pastor on Dec. 1, replacing the long-serving Pastor Lester Shadrick, who retired. So what’s it like being the pastor, especially one so young? “This is arguable, but I really feel my generation has a whole lot more stuff they have to struggle with than the previous generation,” Jones said. “And that might not be true, but in some respects there’s a lot more temptation to fall into ruin in your life. … like a lot of people are crying out for help in a lot of ways.” Jones said guiding a congregation with many members much older than himself certainly has its challenges, but they’re nothing that can’t be over come through faith. “I think there’s always going to be some sort of generational gap. I think a lot of time, the challenge is — for me — what am I going to preach on that these people haven’t already heard? And that’s the inevitable temptation,” …

Despite the unusually warm temperatures this winter, spring doesn’t really begin until softball players begin stretching their limbs and tossing the ball around the infield. And indeed, that time is near, with teams from West Fork, Prairie Grove and Greenland practicing for the upcoming season. For the Greenland High School girls softball team, that practice will make perfect. Coach David Stout said he’s scheduled the maximum amount of games allowed, 22, and is looking forward to a great performance from his team, just as soon as they get done with the basketball season, that is. Many of the players on the softball team also play basketball, and the more successful the girls are on the court, the less time they’ll have on the field before game time. The Lady Pirates first game, in fact, is March 5, against Gentry. “I didn’t lose any starters so everyone except for one girl will come back out this year, so we should be fairly decent,” Stout said. “Right now, we won’t truly see how we’re going to be until basketball’s over. I wish the basketball girls all the luck in the world, but we’ll get started when they get done there. I want …

WEST FORK – Bears, deer and hog are coming out of the Ozark woods to nest in Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble and the Track Supply Co. thanks to a new magazine. The bi-annual Arkansas Bear and Buck Journal recently signed a distribution deal with those big stores, and it’s a good catch for the year-and-a-half old magazine put together in West Fork by Clay Newcomb, who also serves on the city’s planning commission. Newcomb is the editor and “I guess would be classified as the publisher of it as well.” It’s a reasonable description, too, since Newcomb edits the magazine, de- signs the pages and puts it all together with help of a couple other hunting enthusiasts. Launched at the same time as the Ar- kanas Black Bear Association (ABBA), the Arkansas Bear and Buck Journal is a full-scale Arkansas hunting magazine and the only all-Arkansas, all-hunting magazine in the state, said Newcomb. While there is enough Arkansas hunting news and events to fill an encyclopedia, the magazine is bi-annual because “we would rather produce two extremely high quality Journals each year than try to produce more and lessen the quality,” according to the ABBA website. “The Journal isn’t a …

WEST FORK – Sugar on the Floor is a four woman musical group that can cheer you up, make you cry and soothe your spirit with their harmony. Begun four years ago when Mim Heinrichs, Joanie Green, Julie Minkel and Marya McKee attended a workshop at Ozark Folk Center, the group sang all the way home and are still singing. Now they have their first CD out, Gimme A Little Sugar. Many of the tunes on the album are traditional folk songs from America and Ireland. Not that the group doesn’t love to cover all sorts of music — anything from Blues, Doo-wop, Spirituals, even a Bob Dylan tune. And apparently they sing all the time, as someone told Joanie, “I hear you moving around in your office and there’s this little song following you.” Julie and Joanie are play therapists who met when Joanie moved here from Oklahoma. As part of her consulting, Julie spends time going from place to place and will “sing my heart out in the car, and when I arrive at the next place I am refreshed and all ready to look into a new situation.” They knew each other outside of singing; Mim taught …